


things unhidden

by skuls



Category: The X-Files
Genre: AU, Episode: s11e05 Ghouli, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-04
Updated: 2018-02-04
Packaged: 2019-03-13 14:47:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13572810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skuls/pseuds/skuls
Summary: What if Jackson hadn’t hidden from Mulder and Scully?





	things unhidden

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: I was wondering if you could write something where scully and william get to hug? I don’t care about the circumstances I just really need them to hug ya know?

He hears voices after the shots, muttering to each other, and then calling out. “Jackson!” calls a man's voice, the one he remembers from the inside of a body bag, from his house, the morgue. “It's safe. It's over.” Jackson's heart is pounding in his chest; he holds his breath the way he has been since he heard the footsteps. His chest burns. 

“Jackson, we just want to talk to you,” a woman says, and it's the woman from the morgue, the one he's seen his entire life. The one who clutches her head in pain when he does. His birth mother. “Make sure you're okay,” she adds, and he remembers the things she said. Her apologies, her tears. Her regrets at missing the chance to know him. Telling him that he wasn't given up because he wasn't loved, but because she wanted to keep him safe. He's wondered about that. He swallows, pressing his chin into his knees, curling into a ball like when he was a child and scared. His mom used to come and comfort him when he had nightmares or when he was in the hospital. His mom. The only mom he's ever remembered, who is lying cold and stiff in a morgue. A tear drips from his eye. 

“Jackson?” the woman calls out again. Scully. Her name is Scully. He heard it in the house. She clearly cares about him, wants him safe. He's scared again, and his mother isn't going to come and comfort him. He should run. He should leave and hide on his own. He shouldn't put anyone else in danger because of him. His parents are dead because of him. 

“Jackson?” Footsteps draw closer to the desk he's hiding under. 

He could make them see someone else, hide within himself and scamper out of the room in fright, but something inside him shifts and he decides in a split second. He slides out from under the desk, stumbling to his feet with his hands in the air in case he's judged them wrong. 

The woman, Scully, the one who was drawing closer, stumbles backwards in surprise, her eyes wide. Jackson tenses immediately. The man draws closer to Scully, his hand going to her back. Jackson thinks his name is Mulder. Their eyes are both glued to him. Scully covers her mouth with both hands. 

“You're not with the people who want to kill me?” he asks, maybe a little confrontational. He doesn't think they are but he has to know, he has to be sure. All he knows about his birth mother is the things she told his dead body, the things he's seen in dreams. A snippet or two of the apocalypse. He thinks the man, Mulder, might be his birth father. He needs to know for sure. It might be too late to run away, but he needs to know. 

They both look, very briefly, like he has slapped them. Scully lowers her hands from her mouth, as if trying to compose herself. “No,” Mulder says, and it sounds like an exhale. They are both watching him, but not in the careful way he is watching them. They are watching him like if they look away, he might disappear again. “No, no, of course not.”

\---

Jackson gets them out of the hospital. They look around in amazement the entire time at the people surrounding the hospital, like they can't believe no one is noticing.  _ You never get used to it,  _ Jackson wants to say. Instead, he concentrates on giving them the impression of nurses until they get to Mulder and Scully's car. As soon as the door closed behind him, he slumps tiredly against the seat, letting the illusion drop. He hasn't slept in hours. 

In front of him, Mulder starts the car. Scully turns around in her seat. “Jackson, are you okay?” she asks softly. 

He rubs a hand over his mouth, his eyes. “Where are we going?” he asks. 

“Wherever it's safe,” Mulder says.

“Why are you doing this?” 

There is an awkward pause between them as the car pulls out of the busy parking lot. Jackson hunches down further below the windows so that they don't see him. He knows the answer, he heard what she told him the morgue, but he needs them to say it again. To his face.

Scully speaks first. “Because I want you safe,” she says with a certain strength in her voice. Determination. “We both do. And I owe you. After everything that's happened, I more than owe you.”

Jackson's eyes flicker around the car nervously. Mulder is watching him in the mirror. He nods as their eyes meet. 

“My parents are dead,” he says, and his voice only trembles a little. His birth mother doesn't flinch. “Everyone around me is in danger.”

“It'll be okay,” Scully says, like she is soothing a small child. He is resentful of this for some reason.

“I can't be here,” he says, fumbling for the door handle. “I'm too dangerous. I have to go.” They're far enough away from the hospital that he can safely run. He pulls at the handle, but the child locks are on.  _ I am not your child,  _ he wants to scream.  _ I am seventeen years old, and you gave up the right to do this kind of thing when you gave me up.  _ But his birth mother cried over him, told him that giving him up had been the hardest thing she'd ever had to do. He has resented his birth mother and cared for his birth mother, the woman with red hair who has appeared on and off in his dreams for years. And now. What does he do now? He wants to run. He jiggles the handle. 

“Jackson, calm down,” Scully is saying, and she's holding her hands up like she is calming a wild dog. They have absolutely no idea how to do this. His mother would be calming, but just a little firm throughout it all. They don't— _ didn't,  _ he thinks, and it stings—hesitate away from scolding, and he senses that his birth parents would, if only because they are scared of him running away. If things were different, he might think he could get away with a lot with them, a lot more than he could get away with at home. But things aren't different and his parents are dead and his girlfriends almost killed each other, all because of him. And now his birth parents are in the front seat, telling him to calm down. 

“I can't do this,” he says again, and yanks at the door handle. 

“Jackson, it's okay. We're going to keep you safe,” Scully says. “I know it's been a long couple days, but it's okay. You don't need to try to keep us safe, that's not your job.”

He stops pulling at the door handle, but his hand is still gripping it. 

“You need help, Jackson,” says his birth father in a surprisingly gentle tone. “You don’t need to do this alone. Believe me, I know. It's hard to be on your own through shit like this.”

Jackson sniffles and wipes his face. He hadn't realized he was crying. This is the closest he's come to relaxing since those goons broke into his house and shot his parents. 

“You came to Norfolk to find me? To save me?” he asks. He knows this is true, he gave his birth mother the dream in hopes she'd be able to come and help, after he fucked up so bad on the  _ Chimera _ . Back when it seemed like his abilities had gone too far, that it couldn't get any worse and she was the only one who might be able to help. Back when he thought she could help. 

“Yes,” says Scully wearily, watching him carefully. “Yes, we did.”

His parents dead on the floor. The cops had thought he'd killed them. His birth parents had shown no sign of anything different. “You should've been here sooner,” he bites out, curling in on himself in the corner of the seat. 

It should be his mom and dad here with him, going to safety. And the FBI agents should just be friendly FBI agents taking them and Brianna and Sarah into witness protection and not long lost family members. And he shouldn't be such a fuckup, such a fucking terrible person who has two girlfriends and plays pranks that almost get them killed, who gets his parents killed, really killed with no way of coming back to life, and who doesn't make his birth parents, who are risking their life to save him, draw back from him with horrible guilt on their faces. Scully bites her lower lip, turning around in her seat. 

Jackson feels nauseous. He rests his head against the window. He remembers the thickness of tears in his birth mother's voice when he lay in a body bag. He'd watched Mulder take her in his arms through slit lids. They'd thought him dead. Seen him with a bullet wound in his head. He saw it as the only way to hide, but if he'd known that they'd keep him safe, would he have done it? If they had arrived a few minutes earlier, would they really have been able to save his parents? Or would he have lost four parents instead of two?

His eyes screwed closed, he speaks quietly. “I'm sorry… that I made you think I was dead,” he says slowly. “I'm sorry you had to go through that.”

Silence. He can't see what they are doing, but he can picture it. He hopes they do not say it is okay just to appease him. He thinks if they do, he might run. 

“You did what you had to do,” Scully says finally, and she sounds tired and sad. Jackson opens his eyes. She isn't looking at him, but he can see the side of her face. She doesn't look angry or sad or even forgiving. Just tired.

“We're just glad you're okay now,” Mulder adds. “Anything is worth you staying alive.”

They gave him up to keep him safe, he remembers. He thinks they really would do anything to keep him safe. But then ago, so would his parents. He wipes his eyes and swallows back sobs, curls into a ball against the car door.

\---

“I heard what you said in the morgue,” he says. 

Scully stiffens a little, but she says nothing. Mulder's eyes shift to him, back to the road. Jackson wonders what one is supposed to say in this situation.  _ Thank you? I'm sorry? I forgive you? I don't forgive you but I've seen you all my life and I'm stupidly glad to know you love me, because I've wondered all my life if you cared and I wanted you to love me? Even though you gave me up? I'm sorry. I wish I could know you better. _

Instead, he says, “You called me William.”

Scully intakes a sharp breath, pushing hair out of her eyes. This is just as hard for her as it is for him, and a part of him is satisfied. “That was your name before you were adopted,” she says.

“After our fathers,” Mulder adds, his voice rough like sandpaper on wood. 

_ They both had fathers named William?  _ Jackson thinks, and resists the urge to laugh. He was once William. If they hadn't given him up, he would still be William. For nine months, he lived with his birth parents, and they called him William, after their fathers. You don't usually name a kid that you're planning to give up after your fathers. 

“Popular name in your family?” he says instead. 

Scully chuckles snottily, wiping her eyes. “You could say that,” Mulder says, not without humor. 

Jackson rests his chin on his knees like he's not way too tall to sit like this. He's clearly gotten this height from his birth father; Scully is shorter than him. “You gave me up to keep me safe,” he says. 

“Yes,” says Scully. “I did. I am so, so sorry it didn't work.”

He doesn't know what to say, so he says nothing. Pushes dark hair away from his face and watches his birth parents. He thinks he looks like Mulder, but he has some features from Scully in the face. They are not his parents, but they named him and loved him and sent him away and there is something to be said for that.

\---

When they get to the hotel, he thinks about running. He probably could; they are watching him, and he might not be able to outrun two FBI agents (even two FBI agents in their fifties), but he knows they won't wrestle him to the ground like a criminal. He could make it if he wants. But Scully reaches out and squeezes his bony shoulder, and something between nervousness and contentedness twists in his stomach.  _ I have a birth mother,  _ he thinks to himself.  _ I have been seeing her all my life, and I think she really cares about me.  _ Mulder reaches out and pats his other shoulder, and he chews at his lower lip. He has a birth father. For some reason, he never pictured a birth father. He has a birth father who hugs his mother and fights off goons who want him dead. All this time, he'd wondered if the woman he saw had someone to be there for her and she does. He wishes, for a wistful, childish minute, that he could've seen his father, too. 

The hotel room has two beds, and Jackson collapses on the edge of the bed. He peels off his grimy hoodie and shakes hair out of his eyes. He absently remembers that his mom had made an appointment for a haircut on Friday, and then he remembers and it is like ice water coursing through his veins. He shudders. 

Scully sends Mulder to the vending machine for food. Jackson watches out of the corner of his eye. She sends him to the vending machine, and then she comes around to stand in front of Jackson. “Hi,” he mutters, fingers tapping frantically on his knees. 

“Jackson, are you okay?” she asks. “I know these past few days have been horrible for you. I can't imagine…”

“I'm fine,” he says, a little sharply. “Why wouldn't I be fine? I'm in a shitty hotel eating vending machine food for dinner with the people who gave me up at nine months old. Brianna and Sarah almost died because of me. My parents are dead…” His voice cracks horribly. A tear drips from his eye. “... because of me.”

“Oh, Jackson,” she whispers, reaching down to brush hair out of his eyes. “I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry.”

He shouldn't be doing this, because his mother is dead and it should be her comforting him and he doesn't do hugs because he is not a little kid anymore, but he sees her when he seizes and it's kind of comforting. She is apologizing again, because she didn't want to give him up and she feels like she failed him. He doesn't know if he agrees or not, that she failed him, but she is sorry and he is scared. She draws closer and he lets his forehead fall against her shoulder. She wraps her arms around his shoulders and he lets her. She is trembling, as if she can't believe she's really here. He wonders how long it's been since she held him. His eyes fill with tears. “My parents are dead,” he says, and it feels like choking. 

“I know. I'm so sorry, Jackson,” Scully says. He wonders if it is hard for her to call him a name that she did not give him, and a part of him protests that it is only fair, since she gave him away and his mom picked out this new name for him—his mom, god, his mom—but some part of him understands. Some part of him feels awful for letting himself be held by this woman who threw him away, but some part of him says that is not fair, because he has seen his birth mother in moments of pain and she does care about him and he doesn't have anyone else now. His parents are dead.  _ I'm so sorry I didn't get a chance to know you,  _ his birth mother had said in the morgue, choked up,  _ or you didn't get a chance to know me, or your father.  _ His birth mother. His birth father. He wants his parents back. He wishes he knew his birth parents better. 

“I wish I could know you better,” he chokes out against her shoulder. “You seem like a nice person. Both of you. I wish I could know you better.”

Scully’s hands are shaking against his back; she says tearfully, “You can have that chance… if you want. We'll stay with you, keep you safe… for as long as you want… I want to know you better, too.”

He feels like he is betraying his parents, but. His mother told the story of the day they got him over and over again, described it as one of the happiest days of her life. His birth mother told him how painful giving him up was. He can't imagine having a child, loving him, and then sending him away to keep him safe. He can't imagine it. He can't imagine finding that child years later with a bullet wound in his head. He thinks maybe, just maybe, he can give them a chance. 

He nods against Scully's shoulder.


End file.
